Why do fonts appear as Unix Executable files?

Question

Level 1

15 points

Why do fonts appear as Unix Executable files?

The company where I am working has fonts on a server. When I view those fonts in the Finder, they do not appear or behave like fonts. They show up as Unix executable files and when I attenpt to add them to Font Book they do not get added. I tried to copy them over to my desktop first but they still appear as Unix files. Other people in the company can view them and they appear as fonts. I am apparently the only one experiencing this problem.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be?

Thanks.

Gary

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 24, 2012 9:23 AM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,690 points

Jan 24, 2012 11:39 AM in response to Gary Looft

I've seen this type of question quite a few times, but have never seen a definitive answer. Essentially, your Mac is not accessing the resource fork information reading, or copying from the server the way the other stations are. Since the entire data of a Type 1 PostScript font, or a Mac legacy TrueType font is stored in the resource fork, your Mac is seeing them as zero byte, unrecognized files.

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Answer 2

fane_j

Level 4

3,704 points

Jan 26, 2012 3:50 AM in response to Gary Looft

Gary Looft wrote:

They show up as Unix executable files

Kurt is very likely right, but we need more info to try to fix it.

Server details?

What version of Mac OS X can view the fonts?

What protocol do they use?

What protocol do you use?

If they connect to the server with a different protocol from you (eg, AFP vs SMB), try switching to the same protocol. That may very well not solve the problem, but it's the first step.

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